Planet Earth, features and articles | Educational Science

Apr 30, 2019

5 Weird Things You Didn't Know About Chernobyl

The Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded more than three decades ago, in 1986, but you can watch it unfold on HBO's TV miniseries Chernobyl, which premiered earlier this week. While most people know the general story — that due to human error, the nuclear reactor exploded and unleashed radioactive material...

Apr 30, 2019

Octopuses May Go Blind As Climate Change Sucks Oxygen Out of the Ocean

Editor's Note: This story was updated at 11:20 a.m. E.D.T. on Friday, May 17 Turning light particles into visual information is hard work, and your body relies on oxygen to get the job done. This is true whether you walk the land on two limbs or swim through the sea...

Apr 30, 2019

Violent Tornadoes and Flooding Are Expected in Oklahoma and Texas Tonight

A map shows the regions at risk of a tornado outbreak on May 20, 2019. (Image credit: NWS SPC)Oklahoma, northwest Texas and the Texas Panhandle are bracing for a day of extreme weather, including dangerous tornadoes, flooding and thunderstorms. Numerous intense and long-track tornadoes are expected in the region today...

Apr 30, 2019

Why Are So Many People Dying on Mount Everest?

Massively long lines at Mount Everest's frigid summit — partly due to a few days of good weather — may have contributed to the deaths of seven climbers this week, news sources report. These crowds led to a deadly traffic jam. One of the mountaineers who died, 27-year-old Nihal Bagwan,...

Apr 30, 2019

This Seawater Is 20,000 Years Old, and Has Remained Untouched Since the Last Ice Age

Twenty thousand years ago, life on Earth was a lot cooler. It was the tail end of a 100,000-year ice age — also called the Last Glacial Maximum — and massive sheets of ice covered much of North America, Northern Europe and Asia. (If they had been around at the...

Mar 31, 2019

Turbulent Blobs in Earth's Core May Explain Sudden Jerks in the Magnetic Field

Earth's magnetic shield defends our planet from the scourges of solar wind and cosmic radiation, making life on our planet possible. But every 10 years or so, it can be a real jerk. Geomagnetic jerks are abrupt changes in the strength of Earth's magnetic field. While some variations in this...

Mar 31, 2019

In Diamonds' Flaws, Finding the Secret History of Continents

Tiny flaws in diamonds hold the secret to the formation of the first continents. In a new study, researchers used inclusions — imperfections derided by jewelers but valuable to scientists — to trace diamond formation. They found that the sulfide minerals inside the inclusions were last at the surface of...

Feb 28, 2019

Ice Samples Reveal a Massive Sun Storm Hit Earth in Ancient Times...And It Could Happen Again

A gigantic solar storm hit Earth about 2,600 years ago, one about 10 times stronger than any solar storm recorded in the modern day, a new study finds. These findings suggest that such explosions recur regularly in Earth's history, and could wreak havoc if they were to hit now, given...

Feb 28, 2019

Bonanza of Bizarre Cambrian Fossils Reveals Some of the Earliest Animals on Earth

A newfound fossil site in China is teeming with bizarre, primitive species that have never before been found any place on Earth. The bounty of creatures includes a spiny, segmented animal known as a mud dragon, and several jellyfish with preserved tentacles. Paleontologists discovered this treasure trove of fossils, which...

Feb 28, 2019

Melting Mount Everest Ice Is Exposing a Grisly Sight: Scores of Dead Bodies

Melting glaciers are revealing dozens of dead bodies on the world's tallest mountain, according to news reports. The treacherous journey to the summit of Mount Everest is riddled with obstacles — falling ice, ragged terrain, biting temperatures and incredible heights that cause altitude sickness. While nearly 5,000 people have successfully...

Feb 28, 2019

Ancient Microbes Ate Each Other's Corpses to Survive Beneath the Dead Sea

On its salty surface, the Dead Sea is famous for making giddy tourists float like beach balls. Hundreds of feet below the water, however, life is a little less fun. There, choked by some of the saltiest water on Earth, single-celled microorganisms called archaea struggle to carry out life's basic...

Jan 31, 2019

Snowball Earth: When the Blue Planet Went White

It's difficult to imagine now, but at certain points in Earth's history, ice covered the entire planet. This frozen Earth, nicknamed snowball Earth, was a setting so severe, that the Earth's entire surface, from pole to pole, including the oceans, completely froze over, said Melissa Hage, an environmental scientist and...

Jan 31, 2019

Photos: Craters Hidden Beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet

Two hidden craters (Image credit: NASA Goddard)In 2018, scientists reported the discovery of the first-ever meteor impact crater under the Greenland Ice Sheet. It didn't take long for them to find another. Reporting Feb. 11, 2019, in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, researchers led by NASA Goddard glaciologist Joseph MacGregor...

Jan 31, 2019

Why Does Earth Have an Atmosphere?

Earth's atmosphere is enormous, so far reaching that it even affects the International Space Station's route. But how did this giant gaseous envelope form? That is, why does Earth have an atmosphere? In short, our atmosphere is here because of gravity. When Earth formed, about 4.5 billion years ago, the...

Dec 31, 2018

Rainbow-Hued Rivers Transect Globe Like Veins in Gorgeous Maps

Rivers get the rainbow treatment in a gorgeous series of maps from a Hungarian cartographer. Available for download on Etsy, the maps are both beautiful and scientifically accurate. Their creator, Robert Szucs, has a background in geographic information systems (GIS) but was bored by standard river maps with all the...